wise as they actually were.
But unfortunately this is not so with Victor Hugo. His faults--his
intellectual weakness, his commonplace outlook, his lack of humour, his
vanity, his defective taste--cannot be dismissed as irrelevant and
unimportant, for they are indissolubly bound up with the very substance
of his work. It was not as a mere technician that he wished to be
judged; he wrote with a very different intention; it was as a
philosopher, as a moralist, as a prophet, as a sublime thinker, as a
profound historian, as a sensitive and refined human being. With a poet
of such pretensions it is clearly most relevant to inquire whether his
poetry does, in fact, reveal the high qualities he lays claim to, or
whether, on the contrary, it is characterized by a windy inflation of
sentiment, a showy superficiality of thought, and a ridiculous and petty
egoism. These are the unhappy questions which beset the mature and
reflective reader of Victor Hugo's works. To the young and enthusiastic
one the case is different. For him it is easy to forget--or even not to
observe--what there may be in that imposing figure that is
unsatisfactory and second-rate. _He_ may revel at will in the voluminous
harmonies of that resounding voice; by turns thrilling with indignation,
dreaming in ecstasy, plunging into abysses, and soaring upon
unimaginable heights. Between youth and age who shall judge? Who decide
between rapture and reflection, enthusiasm and analysis? To determine
the precise place of Victor Hugo in the hierarchy of poets would be
difficult indeed. But this much is certain: that at times the splendid
utterance does indeed grow transfused with a pure and inward beauty,
when the human frailties vanish, and all is subdued and glorified by the
high purposes of art. Such passages are to be found among the lyrics of
_Les Feuilles d'Automne, Les Rayons et Les Ombres, Les Contemplations_,
in the brilliant descriptions and lofty imagery of _La Legende des
Siecles_, in the burning invective of _Les Chatiments_. None but a place
among the most illustrious could be given to the creator of such a
stupendous piece of word-painting as the description of the plain of
Waterloo in the latter volume, or of such a lovely vision as that in _La
Legende des Siecles_, of Ruth looking up in silence at the starry
heaven. If only the wondrous voice had always spoken so!

* * * * *

The romantic love of vastness, richness, and